Bail reform is setting suspects free after string of anti-Semitic attacks
By Israel Salas-Rodriguez, Khristina Narizhnaya and Laura Italiano By Israel Salas-Rodriguez, Khristina Narizhnaya and Laura Italiano
New York Post
December 28, 2019
Suspects arrested in last week’s spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to “bail reform” legislation — which doesn’t even take effect until Jan. 1.
The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.
The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.
“Fuck you, Jews!” Harris, 30, of Flatbush, allegedly shouted during the attack.
“Yes, I was there,” Harris later admitted to cops, according to the criminal complaint against her.
“Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘Fuck you, Jews.’”
As she stood before a judge in Brooklyn Criminal Court with the hood to a navy blue jacket over her head, Harris was in familiar territory.
She still has an open harassment and assault case on the Brooklyn docket from November 2018.
And last month, she was sentenced to no jail time for felony criminal mischief in Manhattan, court records show — a case for which she had repeatedly failed to make court appearances.
Brooklyn prosecutors didn’t even bother requesting bail Saturday, as they could have, given that the reform law, approved in April, technically doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1.
“The de Blasio administration has made it clear that we all need to get into compliance with bail reform now,” said a law enforcement source.
“If prosecutors had asked for bail, corrections would release them immediately,” or they would be sprung on Jan. 1, the source said.
But the de Blasio administration responded that the DOC does nothing without a court order and can’t decide to release anyone.
Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson even made mention of the coming bail reform legislation in ordering Harris freed.
“So I’m releasing her on consent and also because it will be required under the statute in just a few days,” the judge said.
“Ms. Harris you’re being released on your own recognizance.”
She was issued an order of protection barring contact with the three victims — and a court date of Jan. 10.
Harris broke into a grin when approached by a reporter. “Why do you want to know?” she said. ”Goodbye.”
The legislation requires arraignment judges to set free suspects in any non-sexual assault that doesn’t actually cause a physical injury, even in cases of hate crime attacks.
“If there is an injury, then bail could be requested, because then it would be considered a violent felony,” explained Insha Rahman, who, as director of strategy and new initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice, worked closely with legislators and the governor’s office in drafting the controversial reforms.
The no-injury loophole will mean a quick get-out-of-jail-free card for all but one of the accused attackers in the eight Hanukkah-timed, anti-Semitic bias crimes that have terrified the city’s Orthodox communities.
“You have to beat the hell out of somebody — or murder them — for there to be any consequences,” said former state lawmaker Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism. “Otherwise, you are set free.”
He continued: “It’s open season in New York — open season on innocent people. On Jews, on Muslims, on gay people. It applies to anybody. But it’s the Jewish people in particular who have been targeted.”
Only one of last week’s eight attacks resulted in an actual physical injury — that of a 65-year-old Jewish man who was punched and kicked on Monday morning at East 41st Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.
“Fuck you, Jew bastard!” the petrified victim told cops his assailant shouted.
The suspect in that crime, Steven Jorge, 28, is indeed alleged to have injured his victim, and so was ordered locked up with no bail pending a psychological examination.
Jorge, though, is the exception.
On Friday night, a suspect in another of the hate attacks was similarly sprung with no bail, though in her case she was at least ordered to attend twice-monthly mental health appointments.
“You fucking Jew, the end is coming for you!” that suspect, Ayana Logan, 43, allegedly shouted as she swung a handbag at a 34-year-old Orthodox mom in Gravesend.
The mother had been holding the hand of her 3-year-old son when the unprovoked attack happened, according to the criminal court complaint against Logan.
By Saturday night, Logan, Harris, and Jorge remained the only suspects apprehended in the hate spree. The assailants in the remaining five attacks remain at large.
Rahman and other reformers argue that the vast majority of suspects in minor assaults are quickly released anyway — and that the new bail reform lets judges set conditions for release that can address the underlying mental health issues.
“That can be mental health counseling, a stay-away order, which wasn’t readily available before, as conditions for release,” said Rahman.
Suspects are getting none of that during their pretrial stays in city jails, Rahman noted.
“Money bail, and keeping someone temporarily detained with no care, doesn’t address at all the long term concerns” of community safety and the well-being of suspects, she said.
But in the city’s Orthodox neighborhoods, there was outrage in learning that even when violent bigots are caught, they’ll be immediately released.
“They were released on no bail?” a 32-year-old Orthodox man asked a Post reporter near where the three women were attacked. “Disgusting.”
Steve Benjamin, 30, of Borough Park, said, “We’re scared to walk at night in the street.
“There is a lot of hate here and I don’t know why. People in the community are scared. It’s very dangerous. It’s just like remembering the days before World War II. I don’t let my kids out alone.
“It should be more justice — they arrest them, but they let them out of jail a day later.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Would the attackers be released so quickly if they were white and the victims were black?
1 comment:
Under bond reform criminals are set free on their own recognizance. Does this apply to people with prior criminal convictions? A bond was required before. What about prior failure to appears? It did before and usually made a no bond on a new charge. If so then victims are being put in danger of retaliation and I believe that additional hate crimes will be committed. It appears that the government is placing people at risk. In my opinion this could have 2nd amendment remedies. Perhaps a militia made up of people who feel threatened by this government action. It may be time for people to form a militia to protect themselves from a threat created by the government.
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